


The Demon in You

by Aspidities



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Alpha Tara, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Body Dysphoria, F/F, G!P, Omega Willow, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 12:35:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20796722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aspidities/pseuds/Aspidities
Summary: Tara’s always had a hard time with her image of self as an alpha. Willow’s here to help with that.





	The Demon in You

**Author's Note:**

> I was so delighted to receive this prompt from a subscriber of mine! It’s soft and very sweet and totally not my usual ‘nonstop smut train’ work, so I tried my best to tread delicately. 
> 
> From my high school obsession with BtVS, I know Tara as a character with a lot of depth, who, like many queer characters, was cut from her storyline without much respect to her character, so I wanted to do her some justice. If she was going to be an alpha, to me she would be a troubled one, who has some image issues to work with, and someone who needs a gentle touch to feel okay about sex. I see her relationship with Willow as a good healing journey for her, and in my verse, they live happily ever after.
> 
> That being said, I would be remiss if I didn’t express a trigger warning for folks with body dysphoria, and references to past abuse. Take care.

Tara has lived in fear of her body always. 

Her earliest memory—her father frowning down at her.  _ Another demon. Another girl. Damn you, woman, why do you throw nothing but burdens? _

And then he backhands her mother and the memory fades dim.

When she presented at age thirteen, trembling and terrified in the locker rooms, her coach sneers at her in disgust.  _ Come on now, Tara, don’t act like you’re dying. It’s as if you don’t even know what a cycle is. Now get up and get to the nurse’s office.  _

She hears the woman muttering  _ stupid hick Maclays  _ all the way down the hall, red-faced and ashamed. And the nurse sighs and takes her pulse and tells her to take two alpha blockers and lay down in the back room until school is out. 

She manages to go three more years before her father finds out, but when he does, he gives her a black eye.  _ Thank God I have a son to carry on my legacy. You’ve been nothing but worthless demon filth since you were whelped.  _

After that, she just keeps her head down and stays on Medicare-provided suppressants and saves for college. 

It’s all she can do. 

College isn’t any different, though. The alpha dorms are scary—filled with huffing, chest-pounding boys and aggressive, intimidating girls. Her roommate sniffs at her clothes and cattily tells her to be gone every weekend so she can have her friends over to drink. She begs the R.A to transfer her to a beta dorm and the boy rolls his eyes and tells her that wouldn’t be possible.  _ You can’t go stinking up the beta dorms when you rut, Maclay.  _ His impatience with her is clear, so she lets the door slip shut. 

She doesn’t bother telling him she’s never had a rut. 

Never even thought about it, actually. She knows she’s a demon, after all. She knows she likes girls, and that’s even worse. She’s never even considered what her body could do, sexually, since those first days without alpha blockers. 

Until she meets Willow. 

The second year of Sunnydale U is better, somehow. The alpha dorms become easier to negotiate now that she has a single room and no reason to be sleepless in the library every weekend. She gets up the courage to visit the witch-y shop in town and decorate her room how she likes it. Her father would never approve, which makes her twitch and feel a little giddy. She’s spent all summer working at the library so she has a little bit of spending money and her bills aren’t too tight, so she starts to treat herself. An extra slice of vegan pizza. A morning stroll through the park to see if the Mandarin ducks have laid eggs. 

A Wiccan group meeting. 

When she sees the flier, she twinges all over. Her father would clock her. Her brother would spit in her face. Her sister would slap her. She shivers, and takes the information down anyway. 

At first it’s very placid and unpleasant. Filled with the same bossy girls she’s become accustomed to. No one can smell her as an alpha thanks to her blockers, and her body language and stutter scream omega, so they talk over her, ignore her. And that’s fine, she’s mostly just happy to play along at silly fake witchery and be a part of a group for once, but then she meets Willow, and all of that changes. 

Everything changes. 

Willow is…magical. It’s dumb but it’s true. She radiates raw power, unusual for someone her age and status. She doesn’t seem to know the draw she has for magical creatures, dangerous beings—nor does she seem to know the draw she has on alphas. Tara watches her walk across the quad with her friend—the blond alpha she instinctively fears for the ‘demon-killing’ aura she has—and the omega hardly notices as alpha heads lift in interest to hear her laugh and cajole. 

At first, she tells herself her interest in the red-haired omega is scientific. Clinical. She’s never seen such intense strength in the craft. Her own mother wasn’t as gifted. But Willow’s power is slightly unhinged—it’s as if she’s been rushed into spells beyond her understanding too young, and now she wields a massive weapon that she twirls between her fingers like a floating pencil during class. Tara wants to tell her she should be careful. But she stutters and she’s afraid and she doesn’t want to admit that she  _ wants  _ something, so for a long time she doesn’t intrude. 

At night, her body betrays her. It’s shameful and wrong but she does it anyway, and after, she has to tiptoe to the laundry to wash her sheets, body shaking and stomach churning at how much of a demon she is. She’s sure the change is already taking her. What other reason could there be for how she  _ lusts _ ? 

She’s afraid of her own instincts, afraid of herself. Afraid of how much she can feel Willow  _ isn’t _ afraid. But she’s drawn to her anyway, and one day, it happens. 

She speaks. 

Willow smiles. 

And for one perfect instant, she isn’t afraid of anything. Anything at all. 

Of course, there’s  _ lots _ to be frightened of in Sunnydale, so that moment doesn’t last. But oh, it leaves a lasting impact. She  _ wants _ , for the first time in her life. She yearns. 

And, as it blissfully turns out, so does Willow. 

Their relationship isn’t perfect, no. It’s in fits and starts, infancy. There’s her stutter, which inhibits her at intimate moments and won’t quite relax it’s grip on her throat. There’s Willows friends, who seem suspicious and protective. There’s Willow’s use of magic, which is impressive—but worryingly consistent. There’s the whole...two women dating thing, which Willow doesn’t yet seem to have a handle on. There’s her old boyfriend, Oz—apparently a werewolf, who knew—and all the danger and drama and debacle that comes with his sudden return and just-as-sudden disappearance. 

It’s...well, it’s a lot. 

But Tara wouldn’t trade it for all the silent libraries in the world. 

They’ve kissed a lot. On Tara’s bed and Willow’s bed and once against a tree. There’s been some tentative hands exploring. She lets Willow lead the pace, unsure, and spends a lot of time blushing. She’s not sure what to do with the shameful part of her anatomy, when it appears, so she mostly just clenches her hands impotently and waits. 

Willow seems a trifle concerned with how Tara flinches when she touches near her thighs or close to her lower body. She wants to tell Willow—wants to say  _ don’t trust me, I’m a demon _ —but something stops her, every time, and that same impulse makes her fear revealing herself to the omega. It’s something filthy, something bad. She  _ knows _ Willow will hate her for it. 

She spends a lot of time making sure Willow feels good, to make up for it. As they get bolder and time spent is more passion-focused, her hands start to take on a strange confidence. She knows how to make Willow sigh. Knows how to make Willow gasp and arch. It’s a wonderful, wild feeling when the omega comes on her fingers, or her tongue. Her lower body aches and twitches, but she’s fine with just this, just touching Willow. Over and over until the omega shakily pushes at her and laughs. 

“Don’t you want to do more?” Willow asks her, one morning before class. She’s touching Tara’s stomach, lazily, but with a kind of sly intent. Tara shivers. 

“No. It’s okay.” She shakes her head, gives a hopefully-convincing smile. “I just like making you feel good.”

“Tara—“ Willow starts to say, but then Buffy barges back into the room and there’s another crisis to handle. 

It’s strange and gradual—how she falls into the friend group. They start to invite her to things. Xander and Buffy hardly acknowledge her, at first, and then slowly, there’s signs of acceptance. Xander brings her a coffee in the same tray as everyone else—remembers to get soy. Her eyes almost want to water when she takes the paper cup from his cheerful hand, but she doesn’t cry, thankfully. 

It’s harder not to cry when Buffy slings a casual arm over her shoulders and asks her if she knows any good spells to make boy omegas stop being idiots. Instead she smiles unwavering for the first time in her life and assures Buffy that she can look something up. Willow looks at the two of them and her eyes are like lanterns. It’s a great moment. 

And she actually does tear up when Giles tells her—fondly, and with a hand on her shoulder—that she makes an  _ excellent _ cup of tea. 

It all almost comes crashing down when her family arrives. 

She’s hollow when she sees her father, dug-out and empty. All of her dreams at a normal life seem vague and far away and now reality will set in—a reality where she lives to serve her family again, and to be their whipping dog, and no amount of magic will make her world bright. She’ll be a demon, anyway, she thinks. 

But no, it turns out that’s not the case. 

Inconceivably, incredibly, impossibly—she is  _ not _ a monster. Her family stand impotent in the magic shop, like they don’t quite know why they came, and for the first time she sees them as they are—mean, stupid people with no place in her life. No place in her heart, either. It’s like a spell drops from her eyes. And she stands tall and lifts her shoulders when everyone she’s come to know in Sunnydale rises to her defence. 

Even Anya. 

Life is a funny thing. 

Afterward, she’s convinced for a long time that it’s all a long-winded joke. That somehow, they’ll come back for her. It’ll turn out she really is a demon. 

But Willow rubs her shoulders at night and murmurs along her neck and there’s a lot in her body that starts to relax, after a while. Her spine loosens. She starts to speak clearly. Keeps her hair out of her face. Stands up for herself in class. 

And she starts to feel that maybe, just maybe, she’s okay. 

She still doesn’t want Willow to touch her for a long time. Willow has a heat with her, and it’s rough. She’d brought toys, but Willow was frustrated by them. Frustrated by her fingers. She wanted Tara to take her, fuck her, knot her, and Tara... _ couldn’t _ . It was a bad series of days. 

She feels inadequate, after. Stupid and simpering. She should have been born differently. She isn’t made right. 

Willow comes to her to apologize. “I’m so sorry I tried to rush you.” There are real tears in her eyes—Tara touches her cheeks. “It was wrong. I know it was. You need to be able to take your time with...this stuff and I was stupid and hasty. I’m so sorry.”

“You were in h-heat.” Tara tells her. She stutters a lot less these days, but sometimes it still grabs her tongue. “You couldn’t control yourself. Willow  _ I’m _ sorry. I’m just not…” Her throat constricts. “I’m not good at this. Maybe...maybe you should find a better alpha.”

It hurts her to offer, but she does, anyway. 

Willow looks stricken. “There is no one better for me than you.” She promises, fiercely, kissing into Tara’s tears and down to her lips. “You’re mine, I’m yours. Remember?”

Tara does. 

Willow spends a lot of time kissing her, that night. Slowly, lovingly. Tracing her lips along the edge of Tara’s underwear, but never below. Rubbing against her with her pelvis. She’s encouraging, telling Tara she loves her body. Loves who she is. Loves Tara the way she is. She rocks herself to orgasm on Tara’s thigh, biting her lip as she explains how she loves how Tara touches her, and it’s beautiful. 

And Tara starts to believe. 

The next morning, they’re alone. It’s the weekend, and it’s early. Tara wakes and she’s—-something’s different. She’s tense. Restless.  _ Needing  _ something.

And she’s hard. 

Willow shifts against her, sleepy and content, and Tara has a flash of red shame that she’s pressing into the omega’s backside. But then it cools. She remembers how Willow kissed her in a frenzy last night when she came in her underwear—telling her  _ yes that’s so hot please come for me _ . And her cock twitches. 

She kisses Willow awake. “Baby?”

“Mmmmph.” Willow is not an early riser, by any means. “Five more minutes.”

“Okay, that’s fine.” She strokes Willow’s hair and kisses her ear. “But, um. When you wake up. I think I’m in rut. And, if you want, we could try—“

She doesn’t get to finish her sentence before Willow has rolled over and pounced on her mouth like a hungry animal. Her breath is slightly overripe and raw from the night before, but Tara can’t get enough of her. She kisses back, feeling hunger in her belly, and when Willow pulls away, she sees herself in the omega’s eyes. Her pupils are dilated. 

“How do you want to do this?” Willow asks, and Tara can hear her excitement. She’s almost pawing at Tara’s thighs, not touching yet but holding herself back. “Should I touch you? Do you want my mouth? Should I—“

Tara groans. Her body is reacting to Willow’s eagerness and her shame is loosening it’s grip. “Start—start with your hands.” She instructs, cautiously. “I don’t—I don’t know how much I can do.”

It turns out, she can do a lot. 

Willow eases her sleep shorts off with a practiced gentleness, as if soothing a wild horse. That’s good, because Tara is jumpy, nervous. She comes with a shout as soon as Willow runs an exploratory finger up her length, and there’s a sudden rise in shame when she sees the mess on her thigh. 

“That’s okay.” Willow kisses her, reassuringly. She takes Tara more firmly in her hand and Tara’s body wakes back up with alarming speed. “Let’s try again.”

They do. 

It starts to get easier. Willow’s mouth is on her ear, kissing and whispering encouragement, and her hand is wet from Tara’s come, slick and gliding. Tara comes three more times with Willow stroking her, and each time she’s able to hold out longer and longer before the pressure breaks. 

When Willow takes her into her mouth, though, she loses a lot of ability to control herself. 

Willow is patient. Willing. Sweet. She swallows Tara’s release and begs for more. She’s beautiful, staring up from Tara’s thighs. She looks like heaven. Tara’s not sure she deserves it, but it’s there, begging for her. 

With all the attentions, eventually Tara does form a knot. And there’s a strange tension in her lower body, telling her she needs to do something with it. Something that isn’t this, nice as it is. But she’s afraid. It all seems too scary. Willow seems to understand too. 

“Do you want to go inside?” She’s soft, trailing a hand up Tara’s arm. “I have condoms. Bought them for my last heat.” She blushes. “But we don’t have to. It’s okay if that’s too much.” 

“I don’t know.” Tara admits, shaking her head. “I—I think so, yes. But it’s a lot.”

“You’re telling me.” Willow jokes, and that warms the moment, just enough. She rests their foreheads together. “It’s okay. Whatever you want is okay with me, baby. You’re the only alpha I need.”

She means it, Tara can tell. And it soothes her. 

“I want to try.” 

There’s a lot of tension in her, still, but also strange calm. Willow gets the condom. It goes over her straining tip, and rolls down with ease, and then Willow is licking her lips. 

“How do you want me?”

And that question ignites something deep and primal in Tara’s belly. 

“Like this.” She pulls Willow so her hips are bracketing Tara’s thighs. Straddling. Her shaft pressed between them. 

Willow guides her inside, and they both hiss at the feeling. It’s a lot, it is, but Tara wants it. She lets herself want it. And it feels so fucking good as Willow sinks down onto her that she almost starts to cry. 

Willow sees the tears gather in her eyes and touches her cheek. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” She grits out. “Yes. It’s okay. I love you.” 

And that’s not really how she pictured saying it but—

“Oh.” Willow smiles back at her, full of sunshine. “I love you too.” 

And then she starts to ride. 

It’s slick, wet movement. Slow, rolling meetings of their hips—hesitant at first, then faster and faster. Willow’s gasps joined by her own deeper moans. And heat—everywhere. Willow’s body. Willow’s skin. Willow’s mouth. 

Everywhere. 

Soon, too soon, Tara is crying out—hands on Willow’s shoulders, bringing her down harder and harder. Willow is moaning too, sweet and heavy, hips rocking into her with deeper intent. Her knot is hard at her base, urgent and pressing, and before she knows it, Tara is angling her hips, trying to push it in. Willow is eager and wet, and she wants it, clearly, but it takes a few tries. Tara is inexperienced and Willow is trying her best to help, but it’s slippery and frustrating and then, and then—-

She slides into Willow all the way, fully inside, knotting her and filling her and it’s bliss. 

And when she hears Willow come with a surprised, delighted cry, and feels her seize up all around—Tara lets everything go. 

She follows Willow over the edge and into blessed nothingness. Relief. Singular and pure. She’s not sure if she’ll ever recover. 

But she does, slow and blinking, to Willow’s fingers touching away the tears on her cheeks—tears she doesn’t remember letting fall, but that’s fine. Willow is kissing her, and that’s more important. She pulls herself off, gently, and ties the condom off, and and Tara feels her leave for the bathroom. There’s the rush of running water, the flush, a rustle and then Willow returns. 

“How do you feel?”

Tara wants to laugh, shakily, so she does. “Different.” She says, truthfully. “Come here.” Her arms are open. 

Willow snuggles into her side. “Was it okay?” There’s some anxiety in her voice. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to—“

Tara shushes her and holds her closer. “It was more than okay.” She kisses Willow, long and lingering, hoping to make better sense with lips and tongue than she does with words. It seems to work. “Thank you.”

“I love you.” Willow says, again. “You don’t have to thank me for anything. We can do that as many times as you like.”

“Good.” Tara smiles, and starts to feel more human with every breath. “I was hoping for at least a few more times.”

Willow goes laughing to get another condom and Tara starts to think her life will be better than she’d ever imagined. 

Starting now. 

***

**Author's Note:**

> Want more? Follow the link in my [ Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/bitterbones87) for updates and prompts!


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